Rating Base Game Cards – Ep. #6



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In this video series I go through all the base-game cards and rate them based on their strength and combo potential. Do you agree with my ratings? If not, let me know in the comments!

Rating Scheme:
S: gamebreakingly strong in most situations or never pass
A: gamebreakingly strong in some situations, very strong otherwise or cannot be passed sometimes
B: very strong in some situations, strong otherwise or avoid passing
C: strong in some situations, mediocre otherwise or avoid passing in some situations
D: mediocre in some situations, weak otherwise
F: complete garbage

All ratings so far can be found in this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gzE-QwRTxsyb8T-B_y-VHu677-_wFnBUcYHz7I1k3cs/edit?usp=sharing

Intro: (0:00​)
Building Industries – C: (0:17​)
Bushes – B: (1:24​)
Business Contacts – B: (2:13​)
Business Network – B: (3:30​)
Callisto Penal Mines – D: (4:48)
Outro: (5:22)

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3 thoughts on “Rating Base Game Cards – Ep. #6”

  1. I am not so sure if Building Industries is C-tier. It probably belongs into D-tier. Compared to Acquired Company (an average card in the first place), it is significantly weaker for two main reasons.

    1) MC production is more valuable than mineral production. If you invest into steel or titanium, you are dependent on finding suitable cards to spend these resources. In an ideal scenario, 2 steel production may be equal to 4 MC production, but in reality, it is not. Very often, you will find yourself with unused steel, and even if not, it is common to spend it inefficiently due to a lack of good steel targets. The value of steel especially takes a nosedive in the late-game when there is only a small number of cards which let you convert steel into points somewhat efficiently (Open City, Capital etc.).

    2) The energy requirement is far from trivial. The cost of one power production is supposed to be 7 MC, but in reality, you will often have to spend more. This is exactly why a modest card like Power Plant is actually fairly strong – it lets you increase your energy production by 1 for normal efficency. But there are only a few of these cards, whereas energy production in bulks (e.g. via Giant Space Mirror, Power Generation) is often better spent as heat. So you are dependent on finding cards akin to Power Plant very early on (Building Industries is basically unplayable after the first two generations), and even then, there are better targets to consume energy/energy production like GHG Factories or Development Center.

    The window of playability for Building Industries is just very slim. You need to have a clear engine route (ideally involving card draw) and cheap spare energy production, and even in this ideal scenario the card is average at best. As you probably know, there are detailed statistics on each card, and the numbers are not kind to Building Industries, and the same applies to Fuel Factory which has one of the worst winrates in the game actually.

    Personally, I am still fond of both Building Industries and Fuel Factory to some limited degree, and I am not as low on them as other high-elo players. But overall, mineral production has just proven to be a bit of a trap in the vast majority of cases, which is why these cards have little or even negative impact. And you will find many high-rated players (much stronger players than me!) who will swear that Building Industries and Fuel Factory are absolute bottom-tier or even some of the worst cards the game.

    I'll be honest, I also find it kind of non-intuitive why these cards are performing so poorly, even with all the reasons listed (and Building Industries is doing significantly better than Fuel Factory). I used to play them all the time. But in the end, the data gives a clear indication that these are simply not cards which contribute to winning.

    Reply
  2. Love the videos.

    I feel like it is impossible to properly tier the cards considering the game is so circumstantial. However I really like the examples which showcase when the Card could be good ( combo with other cards or with certain corporations ). I think that is the most useful because most cards cannot be evaluated in the vacuum.

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